Cook-off kicks off downtown Thibodaux festival

Friday

Nov 9, 2012 at 10:37 PM

The Thibodaux Kiwanis Club had the tastiest dish Friday night at the Big Boy's Main Street Cook-Off.

Katie UrbaszewskiStaff Writer

The Thibodaux Kiwanis Club had the tastiest dish Friday night at the Big Boy's Main Street Cook-Off.The club's “after the boil” soup during the kickoff for today's Thibodeauxville Fall Festival won best in show out of 28 teams and 30 dishes.“Essentially, you take everything you would have in a crawfish boil, and you put it in a creamy soup,” said Buddy Ledet, the club president. The soup is made up of a boil's leftover potatoes, corn and mushrooms.Ledet said he loves cooking for his wife and twin daughters, and his mother and grandmother are his culinary inspiration.The fun continues from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. today in downtown Thibodaux with food, music, crafts and more.Those who want to run and walk in the 5K should register at 7:30 a.m. The duck race begins at 4 p.m.La. 1 will be closed from Canal Boulevard to Jackson Street.The cook-off contest is named after its creator, Norm “Big Boy” Swanner. Swanner was the owner and manager of Bubba's II, a former city councilman and a Nicholls State University athletics supporter. He died in 2006.Friends Marty Bergeron, Gerald “Sack” Wilson and Perry “Pappy” Gros were also remembering their friend, George Boudreaux, who died last year and would usually have been at Thibodeauxville with them.This year, Bergeron, Wilson and Gros won the “cook-off before the cook-off” within the local branch of their company, John Deere, to determine who would represent the business during the Thibodeauxville fest, Bergeron said. Their mirliton and shrimp jambalaya was singled out at their company cook-off, and then it was awarded first-place for jambalaya at Friday's cook-off.It was Bergeron's dish, and he had only made it twice: first for his John Deere employees, then for the judges Friday night, he said.His ideal dish would have been a stuffed mirliton with shrimp and green onions, but he said he couldn't bring an oven into downtown Thibodaux. So he decided to mix those same ingredients with rice and make it a jambalaya.The final team to win first-place in a category was the “Under the Doghouse” team with its crawfish étouffée.

Staff Writer Katie Urbaszewski can be reached at 448-7617 or katie.urbaszewski@dailycomet.com.